Anti-Semitic Legends

These legends reflect an anti-Jewish sentiment long exhibited by
European Christians. These tales, like their witchcraft analogs,
illustrate
a tragic and lengthy chapter in ecclesiastical history. Archives, like
microscopes, often reveal root causes of sickness and evil. Our best hope
of correcting the errors of the past lies in exposing their
root causes to the light of day.

Austria

In the year 1462 in the village of Rinn in Tyrol a number of Jews
convinced a poor farmer to surrender his small child to them in return for
a large sum of money. They took the child out into the woods, where, on a
large stone, they martyred it to death in the most unspeakable manner.
From that time the stone has been called the Jews' Stone. Afterward they
hung the mutilated body on a birch tree not far from a bridge.

The child's mother was working in a field when the murder took place.
She suddenly thought of her child, and without knowing why, she was
overcome with fear. Meanwhile, three drops of fresh blood fell onto her
hand, one after the other. Filled with terror she rushed home and asked
for her child. Her husband brought her inside and confessed what he had
done. He was about to show her the money that would free them from
poverty, but it had turned into leaves. Then the father became mad and
died from sorrow, but the mother went out and sought her child. She found
it hanging from the tree and, with hot tears, took it down and carried it
to the church at Rinn. It is lying there to this day, and the people look
on it as a holy child. They also brought the Jews' Stone there.

According to legend a shepherd cut down the birch tree, from which the
child had hung, but when he attempted to carry it home he broke his leg
and died from the injury.

Germany

In the year 1267 in Pforzheim an old woman, driven by greed, sold an
innocent seven-year-old girl to the Jews. The Jews gagged her to keep her
from crying out, cut open her veins, and surrounded her in order to catch
her blood with cloths. The child soon died from the torture, and they
weighted her down with stones and threw her into the Enz River.

A few days later little Margaret reached her little hand above the
streaming water. A number of people, including the Margrave himself soon
assembled. Some boatmen succeeded in pulling the child out of the water.
She was still alive, but as soon as she had called for vengeance against
her murderers, she died.

Suspicion fell upon the Jews, and they were all summoned to appear. As
they approached the corpse, blood began to stream from its open wounds.
The Jews and the old woman confessed the evil deed and were executed. The
child's coffin, with an inscription, stands next to the bell rope near the
entrance to the palace church at Pforzheim.

Children of the members the boatmen's guild unanimously pass the legend
from generation to generation that at that time the Margrave rewarded
their ancestors by freeing them from sentry duty in the city of Pforzheim
"as long as the sun and the moon continue to shine." At the same time they
were given the right to be represented by twenty-four boatmen, carrying
arms and musical instruments, who parade and stand watch over the city
every year at the Carnival celebration. This privilege applies even to
this day.

Germany

In the year 1515, or according to others 1514, on September 13, the
Wednesday following Saint Aegidius' Day, at the Jewish cemetery near
Moritz Castle, Johann Pfefferkorn, a baptized Jew from Halle, after having
been tortured with red-hot pincers, was bound to a column with a chain
fastened around his body in such a manner that he could walk around the
column. Burning coals were place around him, then raked ever closer to
him, until he was roasted and then burned to death. He had confessed that:

For about twenty years he had served as a priest, although he had
never been ordained or consecrated.

He had stolen three consecrated hosts. He had kept one of them,
martyring and piercing it. The other two he had sold to the Jews.

Having received one hundred guilder from the Jews, he had sworn an
oath to them that he would poison Archbishop Albrecht of Magdeburg and
Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, together with all of their court
officials. This very nearly happened, for he was in possession of poison
at the time of his arrest.

Likewise, to give poison to all the subjects of the Archbishoprics of
Magdeburg and Halberstadt and to persecute them with arson.

He had stolen two children, one of whom he sold to the Jews. He
himself helped them to martyr and pierce the one child, so they could
collect its blood to mix with their excrement. Because it had red hair, he
gave the other one away without harming it.

He had presented himself as a physician. However, instead of helping
his patients, he gave them poison, thus killing fifteen people.

He had stolen a bound devil from a priest in Franconia, using it to
practice sorcery. He later sold in for five guilders.

Germany

The Jews were expelled from Prussia under Grand Master Ludolph
König, for the following reason:

At the time of this Grand Master in the city of Schwetz there
lived a fisherman who had but little luck fishing on the Weichsel River
and who was therefore very poor. One day a Jew came to him and taught him
how he could take a consecrated host, place it in his net, and thus catch
as many fish as he wanted.

The poor man followed the Jew's advice. Whenever he
participated in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, he did not swallow the
Lord's flesh but instead secretly took it from his mouth, then caught many
fish with it, and became a rich man.

One year afterward the Jew was imprisoned for other misdeeds,
and he also confessed to what he had taught the fisherman. The fisherman
learned what had happened, jumped quickly into his boat, and escaped.
However, the Jew was executed, and all of his fellow Jews were expelled
from the land.

From that time forth no Jews have been allowed to enter Prussia, except
to attend the Twelfth-Night Fair at Thorn, and even then they must be
escorted and must wear a sign on their clothing so they can be
recognized.

Germany

Between about 1492 and 1500 in many areas of Germany, for example in
Brandenburg and in Mecklenburg, the Jews were committing all kinds of
godless sins, especially the desecration of the holy sacrament. For this
reason they were expelled from the country by their lords. Duke Bogislav
of Pomerania was among those who expelled the Jews, many of whom at that
time were living at Damm near Stettin, at Bart, and in all the small towns
in the country.

Among these Jews there were a man and a woman who had themselves
baptized. The Duke allowed them to stay, and they moved to the vicinity of
Lake Trieb. However, their baptism was only for the sake of appearance,
and in reality they remained Jews. For this reason, they were visibly
punished by God.

Every time the woman gave birth to a child, it came to the earth with a
bloody hand. Because the Christian women observed this, everyone shied
away from them, and no one wanted to have anything to do with them.
Therefore the Jew and his wife moved away from Lake Trieb, first to
Lassahn, and then to Usedom. But the curse followed them wherever they
went, until they finally underwent a spiritual conversion and confessed
that previously they had remained Jews in their hearts.

Germany

At the time of Bishop Conrad of Magdeburg, who was born a Count of
Sternberg, and who died in the year 1278, a Jew fell into a privy on a
Saturday. Because it was the Sabbath, the Jews would not pull him out,
nor would they allow Christians to do so, because the Jew would have had
to help by grabbing hold with his hands.

The Bishop was so outraged by this superstition that the following day,
Sunday -- the Christian Sabbath, he decreed that the Jews would have to
keep the Christian Sabbath as well. Thus the poor fool had to spend two
days and two nights stuck in a privy.

Germany

In the year 1315 a thief broke into Saint Paul's Church in Magdeburg
during the night and stole a box containing consecrated hosts, which were
used for the sacrament. The next morning he took them to Saint Peter's
Church, intending to place them on the altar there. However, he changed
his mind and threw the sacrament into a puddle between the paving stones
behind the churchyard. He turned the box over to the Jews.

Now it happened that someone came by with a water cart that was used to
carry water from the River Elbe for the purpose of beer brewing. The
horses stopped when they came to the place where the sacrament was lying,
and they would not proceed. The cart driver became aware of the sacrament
lying there, and a miller, who just happened upon the scene, picked it up
with his sword.

They soon discovered who the thief was. He was captured in the
clothing market with the Jews and was afterward dragged to death.

In commemoration of this miracle, the citizens built a chapel where the
sacrament had been found. The chapel was named the Chapel of the Holy
Body. Inside they painted a mural depicting the event and hung the sword
that had been used to pick up the sacrament.

The chapel was still standing behind the Saint Mary Magdalene Convent
until a short time ago. One could enter the chapel either from the
convent or from the churchyard.

Inside the chapel there was also a well and an iron bucket with which
one could draw water.

Germany

Eighty-one year old Frau Bandow from Fünfeichen narrated:

Once in my life I saw the lost Jew. One afternoon I was home
alone when a youthful Jewish man entered my house. He wanted neither to
buy nor to sell anything, but with his Jewish accent asked me for a bite
of bread.

I said to him, "You won't like our coarse peasant bread," to which he
replied, "I will like it, if the lady would just give me some."

I then asked him, "Have you come a long way?"

He answered, "My way is long! I must travel forever throughout the
world!" With that he left, but a short time later he returned and asked
again for a bite of bread.

I immediately said to myself, "Today you have seen the lost Jew," but to
make sure I asked the preacher. He listened to my story and said that he
could not prove it, but that the belief was there.

This answer only strengthened the woman's opinion, which was further
verified through an innkeeper's wife from a neighboring village, where the
Jew had stayed overnight. She reported that he had eaten nothing and that
he had not slept. She had prepared a place for him to lie down, but he
paced back and forth in the sitting room the entire night.

Even in her old age, the woman who told this story took great pleasure
that she had had the good fortune to have seen the lost Jew.

Italy

You must know that Judas was the one who betrayed Jesus Christ.

Now when Judas betrayed him, his Master said: "Repent, Judas, for I
pardon you."

But Judas, not at all! He departed with his bag of money, in despair
and cursing heaven and earth. What did he do? While he was going along
thus desperate he came across a tamarind tree. (You must know that the
tamarind was formerly a large tree, like the olive and walnut.) When he
saw this tamarind a wild thought entered his mind, remembering the
treason he had committed. He made a noose in a rope and hung himself to
the tamarind. And hence it is (because this traitor Judas was cursed by
God) that the tamarind tree dried up, and from that time on it ceased
growing up into a tree and became a short, twisted, and tangled bush; and
its wood is good for nothing, neither to burn, nor to make anything out
of, and all on account of Judas, who hanged himself on it.

Some say that the soul of Judas went to the lowest hell, to suffer the
most painful torments; but I have heard, from older persons who can know,
that Judas's soul has a severer sentence. They say that it is in the air,
always wandering about the world, without being able to rise higher or
fall lower; and every day, on all the tamarind shrubs that it meets, it
sees its body hanging and torn by the dogs and birds of prey. They say
that the pain he suffers cannot be told, and that it makes the flesh creep
to think of it. And thus Jesus Christ condemned him for his great
treason.

Italy

Malchus was the head of the Jews who killed our Lord. The Lord
pardoned them all, and likewise the good thief, but he never pardoned
Malchus, because it was he who gave the Madonna a blow.

He is confined under a mountain, and condemned to walk around a column,
without resting, as long as the world lasts. Every time that he walks
about the column he gives it a blow in memory of the blow he gave the
mother of our Lord. He has walked around the column so long that he has
sunk into the ground. He is now up to his neck. When he is under, head
and all, the world will come to an end, and God will then send him to the
place prepared for him. He asks all those who go to see him (for there
are such) whether children are yet born; and when they say yes, he gives a
deep sigh and resumes his walk, saying: "The time is not yet!" for before
the world comes to an end there will be no children born for seven
years.

Sicily

It was in winter, and my good father was at Sacalone, in the warehouse,
warming himself at the fire, when he saw a man enter, dressed differently
from the people of that region, with breeches striped in yellow, red, and
black, and his cap the same way. My good father was frightened. "Oh!" he
said, "what is this person?"

"Do not be afraid," the man said. "I am called Buttadeu."

"Oh!" said my father, "I have heard you mentioned. Be pleased to sit
down a while a tell me something."

"I cannot sit, for I am condemned by my God always to walk." And while
he was speaking he was always walking up and down and had no rest. Then he
said: "Listen. I am going away; I leave you, in memory of me, this, that
you must say a credo at the right hand of our Lord, and five other
credos at his left, and a salve regina to the Virgin, for
the grief I suffer on account of her son. I salute you."

Switzerland

Mount Matter beneath the Matterhorn in Valais is a high glacier from
which the Vispa River flows. According to popular legend, an imposing city
existed there ages ago. The Wandering Jew (as many Swiss call the Eternal
Jew) came there once and said: "When I pass this way a second time there
will be nothing but trees and rocks where you now see houses and streets.
And when my path leads me here a third time, there will be nothing but
snow and ice."